Side-story unfolds in Gutierrez case

A sidebar is unfolding at the Supreme Court on the impeachment of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez. It seems at first to be about lapses in procedure. Yet it could be graver. How the issue plays out might show partiality by certain justices.

Last September 13, 2010, Gutierrez had asked the SC to stop the House of Reps from studying two impeachment raps against her. The next morning, September 14, in the regular Tuesday en banc session, the justices voted 8-3 granting Gutierrez’s wish: a status quo ante order. On February 15, 2011, the SC lifted the stay, 7-5, saying it had no right to hold up the co-equal Congress. Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales penned the majority ruling. Two other justices sided partly with the minority; the last of 15 took no part.

The February 15 ruling was more than just a U-turn. Two justices, most senior Antonio Carpio and newest Maria Lourdes Sereno, revealed a seeming railroading of the September 14 session. They lamented in their February 15 votes that they could not make informed judgments last September 14 since they were not given copies of Gutierrez’s petition. And it appears from records that some of the justices who granted Gutierrez’s plea during September 14 en banc also had not received copies till much later.

Fourteen of the 15 justices are appointees of former President, now congresswoman, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. So is Gutierrez, a law school classmate of Arroyo’s husband Mike. The SC’s swift pro-Gutierrez ruling last September 14 bolstered suspicions that some justices consistently favor Arroyo or her allies. The tribunal was being called an “Arroyo Court” due to its rulings against a Truth Commission to investigate her tenure and for continuance of her midnight appointees. When the February 15 reversal came out, SC administrator-spokesman Midas Marquez quickly trumpeted it as a debunking of such perception.

It didn’t end there, though. Last March 4, Carpio requested that Marquez tell the truth about the missing copies during the September 14 en banc. Carpio wrote Marquez:

In the 2 March 2011 issue of the philstar.com, in an article written by Paolo Romero and Jess Diaz entitled “Sufficient grounds found to oust Merci,” (Annex “A”), you were quoted as saying:

“All justices were furnished copies of the that 60-page petition filed on a Monday, before their full-court session the following day. The status quo ante order was deliberated upon, that’s why there was a voting of 8-3. Otherwise, the justices deferred action,” he explained.

In the evening of 1 March 2011, in an interview with ABS-CBN TV Patrol you stated that copies of the Gutierrez petition were placed on the conference table before the start of the en banc session that deliberated on the status quo ante order.

Unfortunately, all your statements to media are incorrect. For your information, here are the facts:

1. The Gutierrez petition was not distributed before the en banc session on 14 September 2010. That is why I, together with Justices Conchita Carpio-Morales and Maria Lourdes Sereno, asked for time to read the Gutierrez petition because as of the morning of the en banc session of that day, we had not received copies of the Gutierrez petition.

2. Yesterday afternoon, I verified with Mr. Johnny V. Aquino, the process server in the Office of the Clerk of Court who distributed copies of the Gutierrez petition to the justices, as to when he distributed the petition. Mr. Aquino categorically stated that he distributed the Gutierrez petition only in the afternoon of 14 September 2010, after the en banc morning session of that day. Mr. Aquino also confirmed the correctness of the attached Delivery Receipt (Annex “B”) showing the dates of delivery of the Gutierrez petition. Mr. Aquino gave this information to me in the presence of Atty. Felipa B. Anama and Atty. Ma. Teresa B. Sibulo.

Hence, I request that you make the necessary correction to media.

(Signed)

Antonio T. Carpio

Anama is the Assistant Clerk of Court; Sibulo is Carpio’s judicial staff head.

Aquino’s Delivery Receipt showed an oddity. All 15 justices got copies of Gutierrez’s petition only after the en banc — ten in the afternoon of September 14, five on September 15. All this was first reported by Newsbreak. Marquez complained of a snow job against the SC.

Interviewed yesterday by DZMM anchor Ted Failon, Marquez rued that the situation has become his word against a justice’s. He said he based his statement, about the petition copies being placed on the justices’ conference table, on the say-so of the Clerk of Court and the Assistant, presumably Anama. The two allegedly in turn based their report on their staff. Marquez wondered aloud about the turnaround. He also said he was not going on leave to give way to an investigation, since doing so would be prejudicial to him. He asked for time to investigate on his own before issuing any more statements.

Records, like the Delivery Receipt, speak for themselves. Likely there is a transcript, from audiotape, of the September 14 deliberations. The transcript and audiotape would show if Carpio, Morales and Sereno did ask for the missing papers — and what the reply was.

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